Mitt Romney’s Twinkie Defense

Twinkie Defense:A phrase meaning to circumvent responsibility for one’s own actions and instead blame the results of those actions on something illogical and external to oneself.

Absurd Mitt Romney Defense Number One: “First of all, my investments are not made by me. My investments for the last 10 years have been in a blind trust, managed by a trustee.” – Mitt Romney, Florida Republican Debate

Two problems: One, it can be argued (i.e. former Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist) that blind trusts are not always as blind as they appear to be; two, it is not a valid excuse to say, “we’ve learned about this as we made our financial disclosure.”

Governor Romney is contending that until he was pressured into financial disclosure, he did not deem it important to know which companies he was investing in and ultimately making money from. Blaming platform conflicting investment decisions on anyone other than himself is disingenuous. If elected president, “it was someone else’s fault” will not pass with the American people.

Really? The responsibility for a huge Republican no-no in RomneyCare is attributed, not to Governor Romney who created and passed into law, but to Newt Gingrich?

Absurd Mitt Romney Defense Number Three: “If illegal immigrants are getting access to additional healthcare in Massachusetts, its liberal Gov. Deval Patrick that has made it easier for them to do so. All of the regulatory activities involving the Health Safety Net Fund, including who could get care, were made long after Mitt Romney left office.” – Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul

Here Governor Romney blames the illegal immigrant loopholes in his healthcare bill as well as it’s blowing a hole in the state’s budget on his successor. My question is, if assuming it is true that his successor’s implementation of the bill caused these catastrophic problems, isn’t it equally true that responsibility for crafting a bill explicitly denying illegal immigrants care other than emergency (the federal mandate) and ensuring that the new program could be fiscally sustained lies with Governor Romney?

Passing a fatally flawed law is Governor Romney’s blunder. If he will take credit for the program’s successes, he must also take responsibility for its failures.

Absurd Mitt Romney Defense Number Four: “I did not have a super PAC run an ad against you (Rick Santorum). That’s, as you know, that’s something which is completely out of the control of candidates.” “Mr. Speaker, the super PACs that are out there running ads with Ron Paul’s, mine, yours, as you know, that is not my ad. I didn’t write that ad. I can’t tell them how to.” – Mitt Romney in GOP debate

Mitt Romney’s responding repeatedly that he has no control over the content of a super PAC’s ads have been unending fodder for the media, left leaning and right. Romney’s a Harvard Law graduate; he’s a smart guy. Did he really believe laying responsibility on a surrogate would satisfy the American people? Own up to your attacks, Governor.

Absurd Mitt Romney Defense Number Five: Wolf Blitzer (CNN debate, January 26):” You had an ad running saying that Speaker Gingrich called Spanish ‘the language of the ghetto.’ What do you mean by that?” Mitt Romney: “I haven’t seen the ad, so I’m sorry. I don’t get to see all the TV ads.”

Ok, so let me get this straight, Governor Romney. It’s not your fault if a super PAC running ads promoting your campaign misleads the American people; and, it is not your fault if your very own campaign runs misleading ads even when they end with “I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message” Does he seriously think that we’re all daft? How does that work in Romney-land?

Absurd Mitt Romney Defense Number Six: Fox News Debate, 2012, Gerald Seib: “America Pad and Paper is a company that Bain Capital bought with $5 million, took on more debt to expand, couldn’t pay back the loans, went bankrupt and several hundred people lost their jobs. Bain Capital though, took $100 million in profits and fees. Does that show a flaw in the Bain Capital model? Or is that just the rough and tumble of America capitalism?” Mitt Romney: “At the time I was at Bain Capital, the business was still going and didn’t go bankrupt.” “Ultimately, do I believe that free enterprise works? Absolutely.”

“The job losses are not my fault,” I imagine Romney saying, “I wasn’t around when the company went belly up.” Question: For every job gained, how many thousands of jobs were lost? And where jobs were lost, how many of those companies stayed in business because of the job cuts?